Multimedia guide to the BCP

During Lent 2018 we ran the Caldecote Lent Challenge – a series of emails, one for each of the 40 days of Lent, which offered bite-sized introductions to the liturgy of the Book of Common Prayer’s Morning Prayer service.

The series was appreciated both by those who had no background in this liturgy, and by those who had said the service for fifty years. We all learned a huge amount, and gave us a simple structure for daily devotional time during Lent. But what we learned is certainly not restricted to Lent – or even to the Book of Common Prayer – so we’re happy to make this available to you, whenever you discover this page and wherever you live!

Each email contains three regular pick ‘n’ mix features:

Today’s Spotlight: this is a short bit of info on one aspect of the Morning Prayer service from the Book of Common Prayer. So if you don’t know your Te Deum from your Benedictus, this offers a great introduction, one theme per day.

The Challenge: depending on the time you have, choose either the 5 minute or the 15 minute challenge. Each one will help you use a small section of the service to pray and start off your day.

Lent Extras: each day there’s an optional ‘Word of the Day’ which gives a thumbnail definition of one of the more obscure words in the liturgy, and ‘Music of the Day’ – a link to hear a piece of music inspired by the texts found in the morning prayer service, including some real gems from around the world.

Choose one of the three indexes – topic, word or music – and either go through the list of links from Day 1 to Day 40, or dip into whatever looks interesting.

Each day the Word of the Day feature took a word that many of us struggle to know the meaning of, or looked into the origins of words that we think we know, to discover some surprising angles that help us in our understanding and in our worship:

A Postscript

The time invested to produce this Lenten series has been freely given, but if you would like to support our future work, we are grateful for all gifts, big or small. They help us to make this ‘little church with a big vision’ sustainable for the future so that we can continue to serve God in Caldecote and Childerley, and – through our website and emails like this – well beyond our small community.